Phase 1, also known as ''The Phase'', was a

lesbian A lesbian is a homosexual woman or girl. The word is also used for women in relation to their sexual identity or sexual behavior, regardless of sexual orientation, or as an adjective to characterize or associate nouns with female homosexu ...

bar Bar or BAR may refer to: Food and drink * Bar (establishment), selling alcoholic beverages * Candy bar ** Chocolate bar * Protein bar Science and technology * Bar (river morphology), a deposit of sediment * Bar (tropical cyclone), a laye ...

and

nightclub A nightclub or dance club is a club that is open at night, usually for drinking, dancing and other entertainment. Nightclubs often have a Bar (establishment), bar and discotheque (usually simply known as disco) with a dance floor, laser lighti ...

at 525 8th Street,

Southeast The points of the compass are a set of horizontal, Radius, radially arrayed compass directions (or Azimuth#In navigation, azimuths) used in navigation and cartography. A ''compass rose'' is primarily composed of four cardinal directions—north, ...

Washington, D.C. Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from Virginia, and shares land borders with ...

Located one block south of

Pennsylvania Avenue Pennsylvania Avenue is a primarily diagonal street in Washington, D.C. that connects the United States Capitol with the White House and then crosses northwest Washington, D.C. to Georgetown (Washington, D.C.), Georgetown. Traveling through So ...

, SE near Eastern Market in the

Capitol Hill Capitol Hill is a neighborhoods in Washington, D.C., neighborhood in Washington, D.C., located in both the Northeast, Washington, D.C., Northeast and Southeast, Washington, D.C., Southeast quadrants. It is bounded by 14th Street SE & NE, F S ...

neighborhood, Phase 1 was the oldest continually operating lesbian bar in the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

and the oldest operating

LGBTQ LGBTQ people are individuals who are lesbian, Gay men, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, or questioning (sexuality and gender), questioning. Many variants of the initialism are used; LGBTQIA+ people incorporates intersex, Asexuality, asexual, ...

bar in Washington, D.C. until its closure in February, 2016.

History

In 1971, Allen Carroll and Chris Jansen founded Phase 1 and would go on to open another LGBT bar in Southeast,

Ziegfeld's Ziegfeld's/Secrets was a dual-themed nightclub in Washington, D.C., with Ziegfeld's featuring drag queens, and Secrets featuring male strippers. The entertainment venue first opened in 1980, was forced to close in 2006, then reopened in a new locat ...

. Phase 1 was originally located beside Plus One, a

gay bar A gay bar is a Bar (establishment), drinking establishment that caters to an exclusively or predominantly lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or queer (LGBTQ+) clientele; the term ''gay'' is used as a broadly inclusive concept for LGBTQ+ communi ...

that broke the city's "no same-sex dancing" code when owners Henry Hecht of the

Hecht's Hecht's was an American department store chain founded in 1857 by Samuel Hecht, Jr. It was headquartered in Washington, D.C., and operated in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic and Southern United States. The family business was acqui ...

department store family, Donn Culver, and Bill Bickford installed a dance floor.

Events

Phase 1 was a sponsor of Capital Pride, the LGBT pride festival held each year in Washington, D.C. and the fourth largest gay pride event in the United States. Phase 1 also worked with local organizations such as the

Whitman-Walker Clinic Whitman-Walker Health (WWH), formerly Whitman-Walker Clinic, is a non-profit community health center in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan areaBoorstein, "Maintaining Awareness, One Step at a Time," ''The Washington Post'', October 7, 2007. with a ...

and D.C. Rape Crisis Center. In August 2007, musician Mara Levi, Phase 1 manager Angela Lombardi, and Riot Grrl, Ink organized the first Phase Fest. The three-day event hosted at Phase 1 featured local and nationwide musical acts such as

God-Des and She God-Des and She are an American hip-hop/pop/soul duo from the Midwest, composed of Alicia Smith (God-des) and Tina Gassen (She). Since they appeared on the Showtime hit series The L Word in 2006, they have sold more than 30,000 albums and toured ...

, Nicky Click, and others which are geared towards lesbians. The event became the largest

queer ''Queer'' is an umbrella term for people who are non-heterosexual or non- cisgender. Originally meaning or , ''queer'' came to be used pejoratively against LGBTQ people in the late 19th century. From the late 1980s, queer activists began to ...

art and music festival on the East Coast.

References

{{Coord, 38.881992, -76.994988, region:US-DC_type:landmark, display=title 1971 establishments in Washington, D.C. 2016 disestablishments in Washington, D.C. Defunct lesbian bars in the United States Lesbian culture in Washington, D.C. LGBTQ nightclubs in Washington, D.C. Women in Washington, D.C. Defunct LGBTQ nightclubs in the United States

History

Events

See also

References